Joy Division fan to turn Ian Curtis' home into museum

on Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:37

The Macclesfield, England home where Joy Division'sIan Curtis lived and committed suicide in will be turned into a museum after being bought by a fan, The Guardian reports.

Hadar Goldman, a musician and entrepreneur, forked over the asking price of £115,000 (approximately $180,200), plus £75,000 ($117,525) to cover the legal fees necessary to reverse the sale to a private buyer that was already in progress.

Before Goldman stepped in, a group of fans had started an Indiegogo campaign to raise the money to buy and turn the property into a museum, and hopefully keep it out of the hands of a developer. The campaign, however, only garnered about £2,000, which was ultimately donated to the mental health charity Mind in Curtis' name (the frontman suffered from both depression and epilepsy).

"Although I paid £190,000 - nearly double the asking price - I felt as if I had to get involved, especially after hearing the plight of fans who had failed to raise the necessary funds to buy the house owned and lived in by one of the musical heroes of my youth", Goldman said.

Though Goldman didn't offer any specifics regarding the museum or its collection, he said in a statement, "When the time comes, we will welcome the input and ideas of anyone interested in being part of such an exciting project, commemorating a meaningful part of musical history."

The museum idea has already garnered mixed reactions from Curtis' former Joy Division bandmates, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner. While the latter told The Guardian he thought the museum would be "a great compliment," Sumner was more wary and worried that the house would become "a monument to suicide".

Sumner's concerns may have been bolstered last year by the sale of the kitchen table that Curtis stood on before hanging himself (it fetched £8,400 on eBay). At the time, Sumner and Stephen Morris called the auction "distasteful and upsetting," adding that it had caused Curtis' family great distress.